Last night, talking about the Harry Potter books at Omst's house.
Phillip: "What do you think makes the Harry Potter books so popular?"
"Lindsey": "They help me paint a mental picture. I can imagine their robes, quidditch, the hallways..."
Me: "The author is very good at authoritative details."
Phillip: "Do you think if a group of us got together and focused for a weekend, we could reverse engineer what makes a children's book captivating, and then write one that's just as good?"
Me: "No."
Omst: "I think by reading Harry Potter, you implicitly agree to terms that you will not try to reverse engineer the book."
You've heard of the video game initially known as 'Barry Hatter', right?
ReplyDeleteAlso, books don't have anti-reverse-engineering clauses, or else David Eddings wouldn't have had a career.
ReplyDeleteNiniane,dear, remember T.S. Elliot's Dictum: mature artists steal.
ReplyDeleteJust don't make your book on Amazon.com's "Big Brother" Kindle ...
ReplyDelete